The clean up begins in Chambersburg

City employees removed approximately two dozen discarded tires from a former Barbero Bakery lot yesterday, an act that served as a beginning to cleaning up Chambersburg.

This is where the rubber meets the road, so to speak, as Trenton residents understand an urgent need to move on keeping this city from looking like a garbage dump.

Chambersburg remains a key neighborhood for a reversal of behaviors that contribute to a collection of trash that makes a once bright community look almost third worldly.

The Barbero Bakery lot includes two large tractor trailer containers that represent eyesores for a challenged community.

Public Works Director Luis Mollinedo, East Ward Councilwoman Verlina Reynolds-Jackson and I met yesterday after piles of tires were removed from the Conrad St. lot to a city receiving area.

“There’s no question that this needs to be addressed. I just want us to move cautiously so that the city does not get left holding the bag with this property,” Mollinedo said.

“If the property has already been taken over by a bank or someone connected to it through a federal bankruptcy then we need to contact that person or agency so that the City of Trenton is not responsible for footing the bill. The last thing we want to do is clean this lot and then receive no reimbursement.”

Mollinedo said city workers will remove tires and other items outside the containers but the bulk of the work will likely be handled by an outside company.

Reynolds-Jackson said she expected to meet with city inspections director Cleveland Thompson after he returns from a relative’s funeral.

“This is not something that we can wait much longer on. It just has to be cleaned. We need to find the mortgage holder of this property and move from there,” Reynolds-Jackson said.

So, we have promises from two key people in the city’s governmental hierarchy. We have tires removed from a deplorable city lot and enjoy a growing murmur that it’s just time for Trenton residents to clean up our act.

This Barbero Bakery lot effort serves as a starting point as Chambersburg welcomes restoration of a formerly held belief that sidewalks and backyards should sparkle, that pride should serve as heartfelt gratitude for being afforded an opportunity for living in America.

While others can concern themselves with different areas of the city, my primary purpose remains in Chambersburg. I reside on a rather clean block in a place once dominated by Italian families who first landed in the city’s east ward.

In five years time people will re-establish conversations about the condition of Chambersburg because I have amazing faith in those people who have settled here. Plus, that same confidence exists with community leaders like Maria Juega, Laura Mora, and Elmer Sandoval.

Still, Trenton needs a more vocal contribution from Latino leaders regarding this trashing of Chambersburg. Silence represents a certain level of culpability as an impoverished city holds on until it survives a federal criminal case against Mayor Tony Mack.

We don’t need a mayor to initiate a clean up effort. Heck, this movement toward tidy really could be waged without an insistent columnist, reporters or newspapers. Cleaning up Trenton requires an individual homeowner, landlord or renter to make a consistent effort.

Picking up litter in front of your homes probably takes two minutes. So, it’s not about time, it’s about attitude.

The city’s naysayers have offered their best nays regarding the possibility that Chambersburg could ever reclaim the quality of its past.

Don’t bet against the Burg. This immigrant enclave shows signs of an awakening as a chorus of cleanup ricochets down Chestnut Avenue, over to Anderson Street and along Hamilton Avenue.

Take a current snapshot of Chambersburg then come back and visit in July, August, and then again as summer slips away in September.

All we really need is a theme song or slogan.

Maybe a catchy tune like “Stronger than the Storm” song that represents a triumphant comeback of New Jersey’s shore towns after Superstorm Sandy demolished large portions of Garden State coastlines.

No, we don’t need a blitz of glitz.

Just clean up your act, Chambersburg.

L.A. Parker is a Trentonian columnist. Reach him at laparker@trentnian.com.